In my last post, I discussed the results of a survey asking participants to identify design features that are important to them in healthcare facilities. Surprisingly, lighting received the most responses, with natural light gaining particular attention.

As an interior designer, I feel that lighting is perhaps the most important element in a space. Lighting has a major impact on the comfort of a space. Additionally, lighting directs patients through a clinic and helps healthcare providers deliver quality care.

We need to consider various factors when designing clinic lighting, from budget to program, demographics, geographic location, and clinic program.

Public spaces and waiting areas are opportunities to create a design statement. Multilayered, multisource lighting sets a welcoming tone. Warm general lighting to accent lighting and decorative lighting establish a relaxing mood and sense of well-being.

A gifted artist in his early 60s, the patient was a liver transplant candidate who learned he had hepatitis B some 20 years earlier. Despite the worsening fatigue that accompanied his liver failure, he threw himself into preparing for his transplant. He read everything he could about the procedure and the postoperative care, drilled doctors with endless questions and continued to drag himself to the gym each day in the hopes of being better prepared to withstand the rigors of the operation.

The only reservation that he mentioned was the same one all the other patients had — he feared that death would come before the perfect organ.

But during one visit just before he finally got the transplant, he confessed that he had been grappling with another concern, one so overwhelming he had even considered withdrawing from the waiting list. He worried that he would not be strong enough mentally and physically to survive a transplant.

Since the heyday of Frank Lloyd Wright, architects have received kudos for blending their creations with their natural surroundings. Wright’s Prairie Style was all about designing structures that seemed to emerge organically from their environment. And, in that sense, Wright has been done proud by the Eisenhower George and Julia Argyros Health Center.

The ambulatory care center recently opened by the Eisenhower Medical Center in La Quinta, California, evokes the surrounding desert and mountain ranges-both outside and inside. The intent was to give Coachella Valley residents living 20 miles east of Palm Springs a primary care clinic where they would feel at home and comfortable within the surroundings of their hauntingly beautiful neighborhood. Recently HEALTHCARE DESIGN Contributing Editor Richard L. Peck asked key participants in the Argyros Center design process-Ali Tourkaman, vice president for support and construction services at Eisenhower; Juan Ramos, project manager with Boulder Associates; and Denise Burkett, project manager and team design leader with Jain Malkin Inc. (Interior Architecture), to discuss the concepts and collaboration behind a facility offering comprehensive primary care services to this fast-growing community.

We are all patients at one time or another. We all have the experience of going to a healthcare facility—whether a community clinic, hospital or outpatient center. And while we don’t necessarily have the opportunity to design the facilities we visit, we do have the opportunity to reflect on our experience as patients.

What was your impression the last time you went to a doctor’s office? How did the environment contribute to your sense of well-being?

As I’ve previously mentioned, research is an important component of any design decision.

In preparation for a recent client presentation, our staff researcher Kara Freihoefer and I conducted an e-mail survey within our client base. The 50 percent response rate included multiple generations and demographics.

The survey covered a series of questions, from the specific (Circle the range of minutes that you consider as a long wait in the waiting room) to more the open-ended (Describe characteristics of your ideal waiting room?)